Change of address

Hello all!

This blog will be demolished in a week or so, as I am moving house. You can now find me over here with all the cool kids...

Love,

Jess.

Tax return, hoorah!

I was shuffling some cookbooks around this morning when I found a few important envelopes under the Stephanie Alexander. So that's where my tax return was! It's clear that we need to institute a better mail delivery system in this house, but I'm chuffed rather than annoyed, since now I have enough money to live until the next paycheck comes in. Ah, pay-as-you-go withholding. I'll never curse your name again.

The best thing about a chunk of money is the possibilities it offers. I know that this chunk will just be spent on prosaic things like rent, food, and electricity, but isn't it nice to imagine buying something ludicrous? I could get a new (second-hand) laptop. I could go on a short holiday. I could help finance another edition of the magazine, since we've been a bit slack about sourcing advertising...

I can daydream about ridiculously lavish things, because I'm lucky enough that a lot of my immediate needs and desires have been met recently. I have a bicycle being built for me at the moment at the bike shed (thank you, Channukah!). I have a very cool MP3 player (thank you, sisters who got tired of having such a Luddite for a relative!). The MP3 player is particularly gratifying, as I'm starting to listen to a lot of music that I haven't really been able to get into so far. It's blindingly obvious to anyone not living five years in the past that portable music thingies give you better sound clarity than a crappy old CD player, isn't it? And yet I'm just only now having the revelation for myself.

Maybe I'll post a few album reviews when I get around to writing something worthwhile, but now I'm going to pay a few bills (blah) and cash my return, and then fantasize about the extravagantly wonderful things I could do with that money were it not going to be chewed up by utilities. An Akira Isogawa gown? Dinner for my friends at the Flower Drum? A lifetime supply of gin? Feel free to add your own suggestions.

A week in review

Because the year in review seems too fucking difficult in 40-degree heat.

Besides, anyone reading this thing already has a grasp on the majority of my banal ramblings for 2007, but which of you knows what I've been up to this week? Who participated a Pimm's/Campari orgy as the sun set over the last days of the year? Which of you surprised me with phone calls, gifts, and gossip? It's simply thrilling to guess, isn't it? The answer, of course, is no. But because you seem to still be reading this, here is the week in review. It contained:

- One partridge in a pear tree: not really but a family breakfast and general Christmas merriment (read: inebriation);

- One frightening and yet also tedious trip to the emergency ward (bonus points if you can guess which family member was writhing around on the floor in pain asking for morphine);

- One whistle-stop tour of Mt Eliza (and the relatives assembled therein) with a quick detour into Mt Martha for a goodbye beach trip with a very bestest buddy who is on her way to Washington right now (whose identity will be revealed when I link to her blog in the very next post);

- One Pimm's /dumpring orgy ;

- One completely delightful and unexpected breakfast date;

- One pizza packing night with aforementioned soon-to-be Washingtonian;

- Three seasons of Arrested Development;

- And some other stuff I just can't remember. Let me know if there's anything I've missed out. And Happy New Week!!

High on life. No, seriously.

So right now I am flailing around my room, dancing to Tokyo Police Club, folding pointy origami birds for Georgia (don't ask), and drawing picture of dinosaurs. I just thought I'd mention it because I realised that this thing has been fairly downcast recently... I was also reminded by the lovely Mary K (of course) that life is actually pretty fucking sweet right now. Hence the dancing. Hence the recording of said dancing on teh internets.

Somehow I didn't even realise the date until the last minute, so I popped out today to get some craft supplies and now I am making craft like a motherfucker. I'm a little too broke to buy everyone presents this year, although since two of my housemates work at this bookshop I managed to get a whole lotta books at what I think was a slightly under-the-table discount, but luckily I have friends who find origami monsters and slightly abstract portraits charmingly whimsical. At least to my fact, they do.

Anyway! Dancing around the room, whoo! It's a party for one! Would you believe that I'm stone-cold sober, too? Jober as a sudge! I'm high on life! Maybe also meth! Just kidding! But I am happy, because I get to make things for all my friends, and because this year, which has been stressful and a little wearing but also incredibly professionally and socially fulfilling (props to my student media darlings!), is nearly over, and a shiny new one is on the horizon waiting to be unwrapped. Because someone tried to pick me up at Kmart today. Because I got a job that lets me write things and because I won't have to work in hospitality for at least three months.

So yeah, kittens and rainbows and all that. I have to go now and construct an elaborate diorama for an unnamed housemate featuring an origami paedophile and its loving yet dangerously infantalising mother. I'm heading to the beach for a couple of days, but I'll see you after the break - I hope you get everything you ever wished for!

Ouch, part infinity.

Jesus Christ, can this year just be over? I don't think my liver can handle it anymore. I ended up leaving a party graced by my favourite Adelaide-dwelling people last night because my body just would not cooperate. And they're back to the city of churches tomorrow. Damn.

This morning, of course, hit me like a tonne of gift-wrapped gifts and I ended up lying very still in bed all morning until the room stopped spinning, then shuffled to the milk bar at three to indulge my craving for a white-trash breakfast. Lesson learned - from now on we will stock emergency cans of tinned spaghetti and a bag of liquorice alongside our more prosaic groceries. Oh God, the pain.

It's not even that I drank particularly much last night - or "binge drank", as the kids seem to be saying - more that a couple of weeks of accumulated liver abuse coalesced into one critical-mass style hangover. Can that happen? Apparently it can. I think the woman at the corner store thinks I lead a rather dissolute lifestyle, as she was full of matronly concern when I walked in looking anaemic and dressed like an Olsen twin by way of the Prada A/W collection from a few years back (ie. homeless but in rich, secondary tones). Plus, she probably thinks that all I ever eat is liquorice, flour, and tinned goods. If only either of those assumptions were further from the truth.

Cent choses

Today was a good day, a day of things turning around. It's midnight now and a storm is brewing over Brunswick. All the windows in the house are open and I'm sitting in front of the computer with a mojito, feeling antsy in a good way this time. A change in pressure always makes me antsy, as if all the little ions zapping around the atmosphere are playing ping pong off the table of my skin.

It's felt like an uncommonly long day, actually. Time is doing funny things at the moment, stretching and snapping and generally playing tricks. This morning we, we being my house and we being a cohesive unit at the moment rather than the fragmented mess of previous months, went to the bike sheds on an adventure. One of the nice things is a bike waiting for me, a plum-coloured beauty being rebuilt for the new year. Insert easy metaphor here, please.

According to Blogger, this is bewildered's one hundredth post. I don't particularly feel compelled to celebrate the occasion. When I first started this blog is was as a way of avoiding getting lazy, to write frequently if not consistently. I've succeeded on that count, I guess. I've set myself a year's minimum on this thing and we'll see if it keeps going after that, or whether this experiment has actually taught me brevity and structure. Oh, fuck. I just gave away the ending, didn't I?

Trois choses

1. In praise of sleazy dancing. Friday night was a spectacular night for dancing, with rhythm and motion being achieved at two separate venues. It was a sweltering night, and we danced so much that we felt almost purified, the way middle-aged women do after a sauna. I went to the bathroom and ran my head under the cold tap, and then continued to dance, my fringe slicked against my forehead in little wet clumps.

2. If my life were a movie it would have an indie soundtrack. Our barbecue got rained out yesterday so we converted the occasion to a pizza night on the sly. Various people attended and converged in a social manner. Two of them stayed over and we went out for breakfast and sat around talking about film, politics and etymology. I walked back from the bathroom and for a minute time blurred and they began talking in slow motion and laughing cinematically. The upended milk crates they were perched on and the studied bohemianism of the surrounding patrons precluded classical or popular music.

3. Christmas trees are the bee's knees. At my parents' in the afternoon a box was procured containing twenty years of homemade Christmas decorations. The smell of pine needles made me nostalgic. My dad made a joke about paedophilia and my mother confessed a fear of feral horses. I agreed that they would probably be more scary to confront in the street than feral dogs or cats but less likely to encounter in the inner suburbs. The sunburn on my shoulders from breakfast made me sleepy and I fell asleep on the couch. My mum drove me home, and in the car my sister told a story about witches' hats.

Stood up. And fatigued. But definitely not crying.

There are times in my life when I think I'm cracking up. And there are times in my life when I know I'm cracking up. Fortunately, at the moment I'm pretty sure I only feel like I'm coming apart at the seams.

There are a few stresses in my life at the moment - job hunting, family stuff, household stuff - that I'm managing to hold at bay with a combination of demented optimism and baking. I tend towards certain Pollyanna tendencies that keep me afloat where otherwise I might not be so buoyant. It's a rather grimly determined policy of looking on the bright side, and making a conscious decision not to worry about things I can't immediately change and to focus instead on the smell of gingerbread, or the feel of clean sheets, or figs finally ripening on the tree.

It takes an effort though, I guess, and occasionally that effort is just too much effort. Tonight it feels as though I'm leaking out everywhere. I know it's not polite to talk about one's mental health, but I might as well put it on the table that there have been periods in my life where I have been, well, not so well. I've been pretty stable for the last couple of years, and I can tell when I'm going to hit a bad patch and ride it out, but it's the reason that I couldn't get out of bed this morning until no-one else was in the house. It's the reason I go for long stretches without sleeping more than two hours a night, and why I bake banana bread at three in the morning. And it's the reason why, after a friend called an hour before he was supposed to come over for dinner tonight to cancel, I started to cry, discreetly, on the tram.

I do tend to do things discreetly - most people would never notice that I was going through a patch, because when I am going through a patch I would rather die than let on that I'm not coping. And people aren't all that perceptive, either. Anyway, I never really considered writing about it on the internet, either, except that I just read this and something in me broke a little bit. This was me two years ago, right down to the baking. It explains things better than I could, anyway, so maybe you should just read it.

And then you should go bake a batch of cookies, and then be thankful either that you're not of a depressive disposition (why is it so hard for me to write that I might "suffer depression"?) or if you are, quietly remind yourself that there are other people out there who know how it feels to spend every day in a haze - to have a great cloud of static hanging over your emotions, to not be able to make even trivial decisions, to find yourself despairing that nothing - no matter how dramatic or self-destructive - will ever shatter the bell jar.

Like I said, I know I'm not falling apart. At least, not tonight. I'm going to brush my hair and go to a friend's gig and maybe have a quiet sulk when I get home, and then I'm going to wake up tomorrow feeling better and berating myself for being a drama queen. I'm probably going to dump the food I bought to cook tonight in the fridge, because my housemates aren't home and cooking a feast for one seems kind of laughable, and eat pickles out of the jar and finish off the so-pathetic-it's-charming(?) Weight Watchers brand cottage cheese in the fridge. I'll be fine. And if not, the world could always use another batch of gingerbread.

Somebody employ me plz? Kthxbye.

The weekend passed in a haze of gin and animal masks and backyard-hanging-out, as Jono and I went to visit the lovely Caroline for birthday shenanigans. Caroline is based in Frankston, and Jono's parents have a place in Rosebud West, so we packed up the car with various bits and pieces and took a winding and scenic drive to the beach. It was a particularly pleasant weekend, commencing with Jono and I splitting a bottle of Aldi-brand gin and making increasingly crude jokes, and concluding with my being dropped of at my grandmother's house for the traditional Channukah overfeeding.

Unfortunately, delightful sojourns from the real world can't last forever, and so now I am back in the office, eating leftover bagels and looking for a job. There seems to be depressingly little out there involving writing/editing/subbing and I am afraid that I will have to return to hospitality in a few weeks' time. I don't really mind waitressing too much, but I would prefer a writing jo for obvious reasons, not least because cafe work is so notoriously badly-paid.

So, if anyone knows of any wordy-type positions out there, can you give me the heads up? I've done freelance technical writing for a dental imaging company before, as well as fooling around with student media and small press, so I'm game for any sort of technical writing as well as fiction and journalistic writing, editing, and proofing. A job truly would be the bestest Christmas present a friend/reader/anonymous commenter could give me... with gin coming in a close second. Just kidding! I am not a sleazy delinquent but fully employable! Seriously, someone hire me?

Shorts for summer

I met the delightful Mary K this evening for dinner in the city, starting and culminating with free drinks at her place of work. Along the way we stopped at Pellegrini's for $13 pasta, and met up with our friend Ben for a quick cocktail at Madame Brussels, whereupon the conversation took a turn for the smutty. Amongst the printable things discussed, prompted by one waiter's incredibly hot shorts and blazer combination, was Ben's intention to bring short shorts in for summer.

I tell you, I could not be more pleased with this decision. Long have I been an advocate of trunks, shorts, and their leg-revealing ilk. I was recently mourning the fact that a man's well-turned leg is no longer considered worthy of attention or adulation, but hopefully a revival of short shorts for summer may help turn the tide back towards a celebration of the muscular calves and shapely thighs of our masculine friends.

What do you think? Are Ben and I alone in wanting to see more man leg? Personally, I feel that woman have shouldered the burden of legginess for too long. All I'm asking for is equality here. A little pin parity. After all, the fundamental tenets of feminism demand that men and women be treated equally. And men's legs, recently, have not been displayed, objectified, and lusted after as frequently as women's have. So it's only fair that mans flash a little gams. Preferably whilst wearing seersucker shirts, hats, and/or spectacles. And carrying a jug of Pimm's. That would just about make me pass out from happiness, I think.

Gingerbread jihad

So recently I have been on an absolute baking spree, and I have to say I am enjoying every minute of it. Usually my compulsive baking is linked to nerves or stress (don't tell me I'm the only one who whipped up a batch of election cupcakes!) but lately I've just had itchy baking fingers.

Tonight I found myself at my parents' place, drinking Baileys with my mama and baking an army of gingerbread stars and hearts. I amused myself by imagining a star/heart gingerbread war, with each side attacking and devouring the other until they realised the devastating (and cannabalistic) gingerbread cost. Grief-stricken, many of the remaining soldiers offered up their lives in a ritual fire. This explains why there were half as many biscuits left in the kitchen an hour after I baked them as there should have been and why a few where looking a little charry around the edges. Well, actually, my sisters were probably responsible for some of the devastation...

We don't have that many holiday traditions in my family, as we tend to alternate Christmas and Channukah as the Big Deal holiday and thus get lazy about every-year kind of things. But one thing we've done consistently, without fail, is make gingerbread houses, decorated austerely with dustings of icing sugar or riotously with raspberries, mint leaves, smarties and liquorice all-sorts. Christmas is really one of the few times of the year that it's socially accptable to bake like a motherfucker, so I tend to take full advantage of people's willingness to eat tiny gingerbread soldiers and proceed accordingly.

Recently the whole gingerbread thing has gotten a bit out of hand, and I've found myself manning gingerbread house construction lines staffed with neighbourhood children, tiny cousins and tipsy best friends. Which is nice. Although, when I think about it, one of the warmest, fuzziest parts of the experience, for me, is remembering making the houses as a child with a twinkly old German woman named Sigrid. These poor neighbourhood children are going to remember some vintage-dress-wearing twenty-year-old, hepped up on sugar, swearing in French, and making up songs about the various stages of baking. Oh dear.

Anyway, I have such nice memories connected to the gingerbreading, and that's probably part of my deepseated baking fetish. The other part is probably pathological. But what the hell! We will let them eat cake, or at least gingerbread. And then let them lie down on the couch with a strange craving for gherkins wondering how it is possible to ingest that much molasses in one sitting as they fall into a hyperglycaemic swoon. Er, not that I would know anything about that...

The battle continues

I scrolled through my newly acquired RSS list the other day to find that the world has acquired another holy warrior in the battle against insipid yet somehow wildly offensive bullshit. Reading Mary's post reminded me that I had attempted to post a comment in response to the very Ask Sam post she is denouncing. Mysteriously, it didn't get past the mods, and I forgot about it. Mary has requested that the text be reproduced in full here so as to strengthen the anti-Sam movement's internet presence. I am more than happy to oblige. The following rhetoric may contain ranting.

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Hey, imogen and Magoo [sole voices of reason at the time of attempted posting -- ed], you beat me to it. I've never commented on this blog before, although I've often commented upon it (mainly upon its poorly constructed prose, total conformity to retrograde stereotypes and inherent anti-feminism), but the de Beauvoir comment was just the final straw.

I doubt very much that Simone de Beauvoir would read a syndicated dating column, but were she a) not dead and b) to peruse this blog, I am sure that she would throw up her hands at having her seminal treatise cited alongside this excruciating tripe and utter something violent and French.

Apart from having authored one of the most influential feminist works around, and as well as being a formidable scholar and philosophe, de Beauvoir was famously progressive in her relationship with Sartre, with both of them taking lovers and participating in menages a trois. This was before "feminism, the pill, and books like Why Men Marry Bitches", which I'm sure is a charming tome, turned women into voracious sexual creatures who are - quelle horreur! - having sex on the first date. Somehow, I think she’d be okay with having sex in a nightclub toilet.

Like I said, I read Ask Sam fairly regularly and usually respond with an eye-roll and a snarky comment, because I accept that there's not much meat in a dating column that maintains that everyone is equal, unique and deserving of respect, and because I accept that Ask Sam represents the views of one woman with whom I disagree heartily but who nonetheless has the right to her own opinions. But as soon as one of the founding mothers of feminism is used to justify the whining of a man who doesn't understand why women leave him when he makes no attempt to "please them or live up to their expectations", I find that I can’t just leave things with an eye-roll.

Its disappointing and upsetting the short shift feminism is given on this blog – it seems most often to paint feminists as man-hating, embittered hags who bitch at other women and constantly emasculate their men. All of which is fine as long as you accept that Ask Sam inhabits the same artificial landscape as Cosmo or Ralph, where the dynamics of social interaction are distorted and exaggerated for a cheap 300 words and which seems to be about 25 years behind the rest of society. But as soon as you invoke de Beauvoir, you describe another landscape, one where women (and men) can be strong, opinionated, promiscuous and independent without fear of being labeled ‘dominating’ (although I strongly suspect the word Sam is grasping about for here is ‘domineering’).

Simone de Beauvoir was such a woman, and the women who follow in her footsteps probably do scare the fuck out of Sam’s friend, who seems to look at the richness and intricacy of sexual and romantic relationships and see only constant opportunities for petty point-scoring. As to the question of whether women or men should be more ‘dominating’, I think the answer we are looking for is that no person should ever ‘dominate’ another based on something as arbitrarily prescribed as, say, gender. Hey, that’s pretty much feminism in a nutshell! Sometimes, it really is that simple.

"I'm an arsehole. Love me."

Yesterday Jelly and I decided to indulge in a Winonathon, which consisted of sparkling rose, popcorn, Girl, Interrupted (remember when Angie used to be hot?!) and the inimitable Reality Bites. So much Winona! You know, it's a real pity she doesn't make movies anymore, what with the shoplifting and the court case and all. She may be kind of one-note, but she does doe-eyed waif with a French haircut like nobody's business.

Anyway, Reality Bites has always been a movie that I love to hate, partly because I was seven when it was released and the references grated by the time I saw it, and partly because I have met too many people like the kids in Reality Bites - self-obsessed, annoying, angst-filled and under the impression that an exchange of pop-culture references is a decent substitute for originality and wit. More specifically, I have met too many guys like Ethan Hawke's Troy Dyer - "brilliant", subversive, and total, irredeemable arseholes.

Why are we supposed to root for this character? He's nasty. He's jealous, petty, and condescending. His faux-Kerouac evangelising is supposed to be some kind of revelatory 'realness', but basically it smacks of the kind of arrogance that comes from a total disregard for everyone else. Troy, we're told, is some kind of disaffected genius, and because of that we're meant to think that his smart-arsery and mean-spiritedness about the world are somehow noble and pure - he's the savant that sees through the spin of the commercialised world and rejects it with a shrug and a quip.

Except, as mentioned, he's a total fucking prick. Winona Ryder's character isn't exactly sympathetic either, but at least she's flawed in a kind-of-identifiable-with way, and she's willing to see past the yuppie exterior of a woefully-miscast Ben Stiller and fall for his inherent sweetness. Of course, Ben Stiller is going to get a clunky nineties-style platform heel to the heart in this scenario - he wears a suit, for Christ's sake. That's part of the reason we know we're supposed to root for Troy. The other part is the speech he gives Winona when he tries desperately to make her love him. It goes, "I'm an arsehole. Love me."

Well, actually, it goes: "You can't navigate me. I may do mean things, and I may hurt you, and I may run away without your permission, and you may hate me forever, and I know that scares the living shit outta you 'cause you know I'm the only real thing you got." But the sentiment is the same. And let me tell you, Ethan Hawke - this is bullshit. Total, utter bullshit.

Disclaiming that you're likely to walk all over someone in a relationship does not, in fact, give you permission to walk all over them. Being 'upfront' about the fact that you're a prick does not give you a get-out-of-jail card for treating them with contempt. And telling someone that you're likely to treat them like shit because you're the only person that will love them is not in any way, shape, or form, romantic.

How many times have I heard variations of this speech? How many times have my friends? How many have you? And why do we keep putting up with this shit? In the end, Winona capitulates to Ethan's not-inconsiderable charms, because the dorky guy that adores her is worth less than the bad boy who treats her like dirt. Because she's not worth it - she doesn't deserve a guy who is charming and charismatic and emotionally functional. That's the implication.

She's not worth it, and hey, at least when Ethan cheats on her, ignores, hurts or condescends to her, it's not like she won't have been warned, right? Please. The fact that Winona Ryder falls for this shit - that we all, occasionally, seem to fall for this shit - is the number one, popcorn-throwing reason this movie makes me mad. That, and the fact that if you don't go out with Ethan Hawke, your only choice is Ben Stiller. But I don't even know where to start with that one.

Just a lovely day

I was walking down Johnston st today when a women dashed out of a hair salon and bailed me up on the footpath. Would I be interested in working as a hair model? Did I have time for a colour today? I was, and I did, and now my hair is a rich and chocolatey shade of brown.

I think I am going to have to accept the redhead experiment as somewhat of a failure... I loved the colour but every time I went to have it touched up it seemed to get darker and darker, inching back towards my natural colour. Perhaps I will accept defeat until I have grown my hair out a bit more, and then go somewhere really expensive (ie. competent) and emerge the mermaid-haired temptress of my dreams. Somehow I'm banking on mermaid hair, although mine is taking an excruciatingly long time to grow.

I had such a nice time walking around Collingwood. Somehow I've managed to spoil myself rotten today. I had breakfast with my lovely friend Josephine, real crumpets with blackberry butter and darky, muddy-coloured coffee, and some good conversation, then headed off towards Fitzroy, managing to make a small detour through a lovely little op shop and picking up a cheerful plaid summer jacker with cap sleeves, a scarf and some sunnies. Then hair-pampering, and a short walk to Per Square Metre, where I picked up my darling illustration. It is very darling. Shut up, it just is.

Getting peckish again I hit upon a lovely, tiny, jumbly cafe with antiques and furniture cluttering up the back and paintbrushes drying out in the bathroom. A five dollar plate of spaghetti napoli later (the proper kind, with olives and capers and chilli) and I was basking in the sunshine, happy and replete.

It made me think how happy I am to be able to have my own life at the moment. I've done a lot of bleating on this blog about being a dismal romantic failure, but being able to wander around Collingwood, slip in and out of galleries, sit in a park, whatever, without needing to make plans or be accountable for my whereabouts is just a wonderful feeling. That total satisfaction you get from a successful day's solitude... it's nice. And it's nice to remember that I've always liked my own company. Especially on a holiday, in the sunshine, with a freshly-shampooed head.

Hot hot heat

My word, it is hot at the moment. Somehow without my even noticing it the weather's steamed up to a consistent 30 degrees plus. I guess this means summer has started.

I never used to be a summer person, and autumn is still my favourite season (do you have a favourite season? you're missing out if you don't), but this balminess is novel enough to be extremely pleasant. It was far too hot the other night to cook so I had a ten pm dinner of smoked oysters, crackers and gin on the front porch. Its easy to lose track of the hours out there, whiling away time immersed in novels and eating icy poles and swatting away bugs. Sometimes hot summer rain falls in sheets and sizzles on the footpath and the whole street has a Belinda Carlisle moment.

I'm in a funny situation at the moment where I am still getting paid but no longer have to work, so I'm having just about the laziest summer holiday on record. I spent all of today lying under the fan in Jelly's apartment, drinking beer and watching Press Gang. It was a nice way to wind up the working year, although life at the Farrago office didn't involve as many hostage situations, actual news stories or unresolved sexual tension as at the Junior Gazette. Still. It's something for next years' editors to work on.

Clumsy

I always thought that being clumsy was something that I'd grow out of, but now I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't. This depresses me because I've always thought that a sudden acquisition of grace would accompany some sort of magical turning point of grownupness, turning me from vague and dropsy child to elegant and poised adult. Also being able to round a sharp corner in the car without making sound effects, and being able to run down the street without starting to giggle. But it seems as though I am actually becoming more clumsy as the years go by.

Am I doomed then to remain an eternal adolescent, walking into chairs and spilling coffee on myself, and burning my fingers on the toaster? If so, I'd like some sort of gangly adolescent charm, please. And a thirteen-year-old's metabolism. As it is, the myriad bruises and scratches on my legs (hello table!) and the blisters and cuts on my feet (goodbye, kettle!) just seem to point to someone who is tragically inept at looking after her own physical wellbeing. That, and navigating successfully through space.

Somewhat delightfully, Jono has started to refer to my rather more goofy episodes as being intimidating - which is a nice joke even if it's born of his utter disbelief that anyone would ever find me even marginally impressive. Oh well, at least I'm not in hospitality anymore... I tended to be quite wildly intimidating around sandwich presses, pie ovens and freshly-washed glasses.
And tables, and chairs, and stairs... and the actual point of this post? I forget. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go find the band-aids.

Art bitch

This weekend has been a triumph of porch-lounging, punctuated with a couple of very cool shows. It's probably the bare minumum required to keep my art bitch status, but give me a break, it's not like I'm a professional.

The lovely Catherine Campbell had invited Jelly and I to a very, very cool illustration show at Per Square Metre gallery, and so we duly went and ate tiny cupcakes and marvelled at the pretty, pretty drawings. I ended up making my first ever art purchase, a Lilly Piri illustration. It was remarkably frustrating to only be able to afford one - to be honest, I can't really afford it - but I consoled myself by thinking that the others would be going to good and appreciative homes. Luckily, somebody snapped up the illustration of Catherine's that I was lusting over all night, because I was about to send myself broke to buy it. Maybe in five years' time...

(As an aside, Catherine is one of the illustrators who gave stuff to our magazine and was incredibly gracious about the not getting paid stuff. Another of our illustrators, Andrea Innocent, was also in the PSM show, and it just made me feel incredible lucky that there are creative young people in Melbourne who were willing to donate their time and effort for a project that looked at one point like it might not even get off the ground. They are both fucking talented and if you have money and you like good art, get down to Collingwood and buy their stuff.)

Tonight, after debating the value of theory in art with my housemates for a couple of hours, I hauled myself down to Utopian Slumps for the Nathan Grey closing exhibition. Also very cool, with some wonderful sound art and many many cute boys. Oh, and the installation itself was very good...

Throw in some pizza-eating, and some Pimm's-stealing, and some wee-hours-of-the-morning porch-drinking, and some brunch-devouring and lake-sitting, and that's pretty much the sum of my weekend. Maybe tomorrow I'll get down to the Gallery. You know, dressed in black, with a flask of gin. This art bitch life is pretty fucking sweet.

Teef

Recently I've been dreaming that my teeth are falling out. A lot. Like, every second night. Most of the time I'm going about my business and I realise that one of my molars is missing, then a few of my teeth just start dropping out, and then a few more, until I am frantically trying to keep them in and running madly to the nearest dentist. A couple of times they've been smashed out violently. Once I had that dream within a dream thing where I woke up and gave a sigh of relief that I still had all my teeth, and then they started falling out again and that's when I actually woke up.

What the fuck? According to Google (or more accurately, the number one Google hit, Dream Moods),

One theory is that dreams about your teeth reflect your anxiety about your appearance and how others perceive you. Sadly, we live in a world where good looks are valued highly and your teeth play an important role in conveying that image. Teeth are used in the game of flirtations, whether it be a dazzling and gleaming smile or affectionate necking. These dreams may stem from a fear of your sexual impotence or the consequences of getting old. Teeth are an important feature of our attractiveness and presentation to others. Everybody worries about how they appear to others. Caring about our appearance is natural and healthy.

Apparently, it can also signify that I am nervous about public speaking, feeling powerless, or "putting [my] faith, trust, and beliefs in what man thinks rather than in the word of God." Um, not going to argue with that last one... According to my housemate Surineh, it could also mean that I am coming into money, which, as nice as that would we, just does not seem likely at this particular juncture. I don't know. Most likely it just means that I forgot to buy floss or something - I am, after all, a dentist's daughter...

Feel free to add your own interpretation.

Farewell, Lucky: we barely knew ye

It's incredibly quiet around here; soft, peaceful, the night air unbroken by man or fowl. I can't get used to the lack of noise, although it's a welcome quiet. It's quiet because today a nice man came and took the rooster away. Farewell, Lucky: you've gone to a better place.

For those of you not in the know, Lucky was one of a pair of chooks bought to keep the duck company. The other one didn't quite make it, poor darling. For the longest time we were in denial about the fact that Lucky was not a girl chicken, but as with so many other male-types to which we had become attached, inevitably we had to face the fact that he was a cock.

Anyway, as well as being incredibly not kosher with the city council, Lucky was waking me up at five am every morning and continuing to crow throughout the day, as well as attacking Hegel and anyone who got too close. We didn't want to take him to the RSPCA, since we realised he'd promptly be put down, so Georgia listed him on the Trading Post ("Well-fed rooster, $1, price negotiable) and someone called up jubilant and came and collected Lucky. He breeds chickens, apparently - instead of getting the needle, Lucky is being put out to stud. There could be worse fates.

In any case, I can't quite get used to the lack of noise. Fortunately our street has some weird sound dynamics, otherwise the neighbours would have lynched us by now - that's how piercing the damn bird. It will be blissful to sleep past five tomorrow. Hegel is getting used to being an only child - he's getting more attention from us at the moment that he has since he was a duckling. And instead of a dollar, Georgia is getting a free soft drink next time she goes to Mr Breeder's 7-11. We're still trying to figure out who got the better end of the deal.

Sleepy weekend

All this week I've been struggling with a cold, and this weekend my body finally gave out. To wit: Friday night I came home, took a three-hour nap, ate dinner, went to sleep. Saturday I woke late, read the papers, had breakfast, read a novel, fell asleep. Sunday I napped all day before meeting Jelly for Mexican food and porch-drinking good times. Er, business meeting. I met Jelly for a business meeting.

Anyway, it was a rather delightful change of pace, given that I rarely get to bed before 2am on a good night and regularly go through bouts of gruelling awakeness. Reading in bed was particularly nice - propped up on cushions, cup of tea in hand, halfway through The Picture of Dorian Grey before snuggling down a bit and passing out completely. And that halfway in-denial feeling of just closing your eyes for ten minutes, knowing full well you are dedicating precious weekend moments to somnabulent bliss.

It was rather a rude shock to get up today and go to work, but it was nice to be able to do so without the aid of pseudoephedrine and gallons of coffee. So this is what 'well-rested' feels like. Bloody hell, well now that I know...